P.S. I Like You (Spoiler-Free)

I received P.S. I Like You in the August OwlCrate box, which was appropriately themed Fast Times at YA High. I had heard wonderful things about this book and was excited to dive in. Overall, it was a fun, cutesy read, but for reasons explained below (okay, maybe just ONE main reason), I wasn’t head-over-heels in love with it. It was still enjoyable though! Plus I imagine that my one main reason really won’t apply to everyone, so please keep reading for my spoiler-free review 🙂

Genre
YA Contemporary Romance – light and fun with minimum drama

Intended Audience
Teens and young adults and really anyone who enjoys a cute and relatively quick read

Overview (From Barnes & Noble)
Signed, sealed, delivered…

While spacing out in Chemistry class, Lily scribbles some of her favorite song lyrics onto her desk. The next day, she finds that someone has continued the lyrics on the desk, and added a message to her. Intrigue!

Soon, Lily and her anonymous pen pal are exchanging full-on letters — sharing secrets, recommending bands, and opening up to each other. Lily realizes she’s kind of falling for this letter writer. Only who is he? As Lily attempts to unravel the mystery, and juggle school, friends, crushes, and her crazy family, she discovers that matters of the heart can’t always be spelled out…

Setting
High School – mainly

Characters
I found the main characters to be pretty endearing. Lily, in particular, was quirky and witty, (though not without her faults) and the story was told from her perspective.

What I Liked
P.S. I Like You was light and fun and I REALLY didn’t have to worry about any of the characters dying. …I think. It’s hard to tell nowadays, because George R.R. Martin has scarred my reading experience with anxiety and fear for the lives of all characters ever in existence; so much so that that lingering fear is still there even when it’s totally uncalled for because it’s a dang teen romantic comedy for crying out loud. And I haven’t even read the entire GoT book series. This is just from watching the TV series (which is still totally awesome, epic, and badass, in case you were wondering). Anyway, yes, I’m 99% certain that I wasn’t afraid of anyone dying in this book. Yay! Such a nice and refreshing reading experience 🙂

I also enjoyed the writing and the banter exchanged by the characters. And there were definitely lessons to be learned here, particularly the importance of looking past your own “world” and not making assumptions about situations and/or other people. And communication! You have no idea how many times I’ve “yelled” at a show or a book, because the characters just aren’t communicating. Like, come on guys! Your problems would be solved SO much faster if you’d just talk to each other!

What I Liked A Little Less
So here’s that one main reason. Predictability. This was pretty much a teen version of a certain 90s Meg Ryan movie that I saw way back in the day. I mean, it was still unique in its own way, of course; but the backbone of the story was the same. I won’t say the title, because I don’t want to spoil either the book or movie for you, but I’m okay with telling you that it’s from the 90s and stars Meg Ryan, because, let’s face it, she’s been in quite a few rom-coms. I didn’t get too far into the book before I realized where it was going, so that kinda bummed me out a bitlot. In fact, I even wondered whether or not it was deliberately the same – like a cute, modern, teen remake of the movie or something – so I did some searching online after I finished the book, but couldn’t find anything about it being a re-imagining. (If I’m wrong and I glaringly missed the fact that it IS a remake, please let me know!) Just to be clear, I’m not claiming that West copied this movie or anything. It just involves some prominent tropes that are bound to be repeated. Like I said, I still liked it over all and I think I would’ve enjoyed it way more had it not been for having already seen that movie. (Which my husband has apparently not seen, so that’s now on our date-night movie list. Right next to Sharknado. No really, I’m serious; we like to mix things up 😛 )

Score
P.S. I Like You gets 3.5/5 stars. I’ll give West’s other reads a shot.